He talked about how the government had failed to respond to the needs of the poor. He talked about how the education system crippled the youth of the nation, allowing them to grow up without the necessary skills needed to be competitive.

Of the socio-economic strategies he said: “We cannot comfort ourselves that we have sacrificed growth for social equity. If there is a trade off between growth and equity, we have not made it. We are failing on both counts.”

“Even if we manage to coast through this downturn, we will emerge with an economy that has failed to gear itself up to the demands of the global economy, fallen yet further behind the developmental path and locked ourselves tighter into a pattern of low growth.”

Asked by the audience what can be done to change the present political leadership to one better suited to guide Malaysia through the rocky times ahead, Razaleigh replied: “I tried but I failed.”